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A great white shark has passed away only 3 days after being transferred to a Japanese aquarium.

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) was taken to Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium recently after it was unintentionally captured in a net off the coast of Japan. Measuring a normal 3.5 meters (11.5 feet), the shark had not eaten since it was caught.

The shark’s death will be investigated, although occurrence is not unusual given the history of attempts to catch and keep white sharks in captivity. In 1981, Sea World, San Francisco kept a white shark, which was released only two weeks later after it would not eat.

There are many ideas on why an aquarium cannot hold these animals. Foremost is their temperament is to roam the ocean for many hundreds of square miles, necessitating a huge tank that aquariums are simply unable to provide. If the sharks are not given this, they get depressed and more aggressive.

Furthermore, unless they are starving, great whites will only eat live food and will not to consume already dead prey.

A further idea discusses that the harsh and unnatural environment of a tank may overwhelm these sharks’ keen electro-sensitivity.

On January 17, beach patrol helicopters in the south of Australia reported locating a great white shark “almost as big as Jaws”. Actually, it was estimated at 23ft long, only slightly smaller than the well known movie killer; and it swam about 100 metres off the beach.

Last year, footage of what experts think is the largest white shark ever captured on film also went viral. Large sharks will always make the news, but as opposed of encouraging fear, they really should be reason for rejoycing.

Recently a great many sharks have been massivly reduced in numbers, with some types down as much as 90%. While determining the exact numbers of individuals is impossible, there are positive signs that some white shark numbers are improving. This can be attributed to policies to protect both the sharks and their main food source, marine mammals such as seals.

There is a well known likliehood that fish size is exageratted – especially sharks. Given the lack of a reference point in the water it is tough to accurately estimate size underwater. Large great white sharks are usually old. A recent examination of data determioned that white sharks may live for as long as 70 years. These old sharks are positive for the shark population, as they have had the ability to reproduce, introducing offspring into a now small population.

An incredibly ancient Jurassic Period dinosaur fell out of a cliff in South Wales in 2014. This 201-million-year-old creature displays a vital moment in dinosaur evolutionary history for us.

The time of the dinosaurs is segmented into 3 geological time periods. The Triassic started 252 million years ago. It was defined by what has been by far the world’s most significant mass extinction occurence known now as the ‘Great Dying’. The Jurassic started 201 million years ago, a further period of time partitioned by a further, and somewhat less severe mass extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction event. The Cretaceous started 145 million years ago, and was the time period that included the well known but somewhat dim Tyrannasaurus Rex, as well as the highly intelligent and dangerous Velociraptor.

There is a significant amount that scientists are unaware of concerning the boundary between the Triassic and the Jurassic. The Early Jurassic has a lot of unknowns in terms of evolution and mass extinction, which destroyed close to half of the world’s species. This new species located in Wales, Dracoraptor hanigani, or “dragon thief,” will assist to fill this evolutionary void.

Dated at 201.3 million years old, it is directly on the border defining these periods, directly at the region where researchers think a huge diversification in dinosaur species started to happen. The scientists are confident of their very precise dating due to the location of the fossil records.
Unusually, almost 40 percent of its bones were recovered, including seven of its teeth, its skull, feet and claws. This unusual quality of preservation means many of the missing pieces can be easily completed by the scientists due to the symmetry found in all skeletons.

Measuring 2 meters (6.6 feet) long, this “teenage” dinosaur was obviously a carnivore, having serrated, needle-sharp teeth for slicing and picking up chunks of prey. The term “thief” derives from the educated guess that this animal was likely a scavenger. Its lithe skeleton suggests that it was able to steal pieced of meat from dead prey that may have been caught by larger dinosaurs.

The cliff it was located in was made of marine rocks, suggesting that it was washed out to the ocean when it died.

As a break from the usual footage of boring cars, trucks and tarmac, a fixed traffic camera in Canada has caught some amazing footage of something a bit more special.
A snowy owl was recorded on January 3, by the traffic camera set atthe intersection of Autoroute 40/ Boulevard des Sources, in the West Island in Montreal. The image surfaced after Quebec’s transport minister, shared it to the web via Twitter and Facebook.

Quite appropriately, the snowy owl is the official symbol of the state of Quebec. The bird is usually found north, in the Arctic tundra. But during the colder harder winter times they sometimes fly to the south for some easier food.

The assasination of former Russian spy master Alexander Litvinenko has been one of the most well-known assasinations of late. It especially captured the publics imagination as Litvinenko was assasinated using a rare but lethal substance – polonium-210 – which it is belileved was delivered through dosing his tea.

Polonium is a radioactive substance that occuring naturally in small deposits. Discovered in 1898 by the famous Marie Curie, Curie christened it after Poland, her native land.

Poloniun is “created” from the decay of uranium atoms into lead. Polonium is a step along this decay path, which is why there are not any large depoists found.

Polonium can be artificially made by man through bombarding atoms of bismuth with large numbers of neutrons. Only one location on the earth made polonium regulary – a nuclear laboratory less than 500 miles south-east from Moscow – so the polonium utilized in the assasination was most likely to have been sourced from this facility.

Polonium is one of the most toxic substances known. It is also difficult to detect by radiation detectors, therefore polonium is likely simple to smuggle than other lethal agents.

Alexander Litvinenko is not the only death caused by polonium. In 1956, Marie Curie’s daughter passed away from leukaemia that she likely contracted via exposure to polonium many years previously. There have also been allegations Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was exposed to polonium in a similar fashion to that Litvinenko was.

As children, most of us get our initial introduction to popular culture via fairy tale stories, with classic tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, as well as the Three Little Pigs all capturing us all through our early years.
But exactly when these stories came into life has been an area of sringent discussion over the decades, although new research suggests some fairy tales could be far older than initially believed, with one dating back to the Bronze Age.

Folklorist Sara Graça da Silva as well as anthropologist Jamshid Tehrani looked to figure out the origins of 275 tales classified as Tales of Magic.

To carry out their studies, they utilized phylogenetic methods, usually utilized by biologists to map the evolutionary paths of particular populations, but have also been used to trace linguistic roots.
Using data from previous studies they were determine that some well known fairy tales, like Beauty and the Beast, probably originated about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. Although the well known modern version was first released in 1740, the analysis indicates that the structure of the story is replicated across a number of various tales across the Indo-European area.

Interestingly, they also revealed that one particular story, The Smith and the Devil, is able to be traced back to the Bronze Age, in a language from the base of the Indo-European language tree.

Since this tale tells the story of a metal-worker who makes a pact with the devil, the research suggests that it shows the emergence of metallurgy at least 6,000 years ago.

Loch Ness , long-time home of Scotland’s mythical creatures – may well be a lot deeper than we previously believed.

A local boat operator, has used sonar to determine that the loch may well be 271 meters (889 feet) deep, a significant 41 meters (135 feet) deeper than measured in the past.

The recently located under loch trench is only few hundred yards offshore; as previous mapping have been carried out right down the center of the loch. The measurements have been verified on multiple occassions.

“I wasn’t exactly a believer of the beast prior to this,” Stewart said. “However two weeks ago, I received a sonar image of what appeared to be a long object with a hump right at the bottom. The object wasn’t there when I took readings later that day.“

Similar to a computer, the human brain has a total storage abilty that determines how much data it can store. But there is no definitive way to figure out the total colume of informaiton that the brain can hold However, understanding how signals in the brain are mediated is essential in order to determine the brain’s total storage capacity.

As a specific measurement for this total storage ability has never been agreed, a study has stated that previous approximate estimates could have significantly underestimated the memory storage abilities of the human brain. And actually, they suggest the capacity may be as up to 10 times higher than previously believed.

Until recently, it had been believed that synapses existed in a fairly low number of variying sizes. But ,due to this study it is now belived that there are as many as 26 different possible synaptic sizes and strengths, ultimately determining that each synapse could generate 4.7 bit of memory. This is about 10 times higher than had previously been believed.

As the brain contains many trillion synapses, the study indicated the calculations suggest a truly amazing processing power. Coauthor Terry Sejnowski detailed in a statement that:

“our new study of the brain’s storage ability increase conservative estimates by a factor of ten to at the minimum of a petabyte, in the same area as the World Wide Web.”

An international team of researchers has created a battery that could charge to up five times more power than today’s lithium-ion batteries. The new battery is named a lithium-air battery, as when used it releases oxygen.

The existing design of lithium-air batteries utilizes lithium peroxide. The positive end of the battery contains metallic lithium which acts with oxygen, storing power within chemical bonds. Lithium peroxide is inefficient as it binds very tightly with lithium.

The researchers designed a new battery that instead stores power within lithium superoxide, enabling higher efficiency and an excellent battery life.
The lithium superoxide has a further significant advantage. It is a closed system- which means it does not need additional oxygen or any removal of waste, it only needs to be charged similar to other batteries.

This revelation truly opens an avenue for the possible design of a new kind of battery,” Larry Curtiss said in a statement. Although more testing and trials are needed, the cycle life of this battery is exactly what we were wanting to create.”

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An international team of researchers has created a battery that could charge to up five times more power than today’s lithium-ion batteries. The new battery is named a lithium-air battery, as when used it releases oxygen. The existing design of lithium-air batteries utilizes lithium peroxide. The positive end of the battery contains metallic lithium which […]

A great white shark has passed away only 3 days after being transferred to a Japanese aquarium. The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) was taken to Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium recently after it was unintentionally captured in a net off the coast of Japan. Measuring a normal 3.5 meters (11.5 feet), the shark had not eaten […]

Loch Ness , long-time home of Scotland’s mythical creatures – may well be a lot deeper than we previously believed. A local boat operator, has used sonar to determine that the loch may well be 271 meters (889 feet) deep, a significant 41 meters (135 feet) deeper than measured in the past. The recently located […]

The assasination of former Russian spy master Alexander Litvinenko has been one of the most well-known assasinations of late. It especially captured the publics imagination as Litvinenko was assasinated using a rare but lethal substance – polonium-210 – which it is belileved was delivered through dosing his tea. Polonium is a radioactive substance that occuring […]

As children, most of us get our initial introduction to popular culture via fairy tale stories, with classic tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, as well as the Three Little Pigs all capturing us all through our early years. But exactly when these stories came into life has been an […]

An incredibly ancient Jurassic Period dinosaur fell out of a cliff in South Wales in 2014. This 201-million-year-old creature displays a vital moment in dinosaur evolutionary history for us. The time of the dinosaurs is segmented into 3 geological time periods. The Triassic started 252 million years ago. It was defined by what has been […]

Similar to a computer, the human brain has a total storage abilty that determines how much data it can store. But there is no definitive way to figure out the total colume of informaiton that the brain can hold However, understanding how signals in the brain are mediated is essential in order to determine the […]

On January 17, beach patrol helicopters in the south of Australia reported locating a great white shark “almost as big as Jaws”. Actually, it was estimated at 23ft long, only slightly smaller than the well known movie killer; and it swam about 100 metres off the beach. Last year, footage of what experts think is […]

As a break from the usual footage of boring cars, trucks and tarmac, a fixed traffic camera in Canada has caught some amazing footage of something a bit more special. A snowy owl was recorded on January 3, by the traffic camera set atthe intersection of Autoroute 40/ Boulevard des Sources, in the West Island […]